Irsud (14 page)

The hiiri snarled and leaped toward the knife. Swardheld caught hold of his flying hair and jerked him around, using his momentum to throw him into a flying circle that fetched him up, face digging into the grass with Swardheld in Aleytys' body kneeing him in the spine, twisting his knife arm painfully high across his back.

“Hiiri!” The word came from Aleytys' mouth in a harsh bark as Swardheld manipulated her vocal cords.

The body twitched under him. “Hiiri,” Swardheld repeated brusquely. “You understand me?”

The hiiri muttered something but his words were lost in the grass.

“Listen, fool. Stop creating so much fuss, or you'll have the guards on your neck instead of me. Got that through that damn thick head of yours? Nod your head if you hear me.”

The hiiri lay still a moment then the shaggy head nodded with an impatient angry jerk.

“If I let you up, will you listen?” Swardheld chuckled easily. “Go crazy again and I'll break some pieces off you. Got it?”

The hiiri lay stubbornly still. Swardheld yanked on the captive arm, forcing a grunt of pain out of him.

He twisted his head around and spat the grass out of his bruised mouth. “I hear you,” he said reluctantly.

“Remember it. I got more tricks than a knockhead like you learns in a lifetime. Don't fool with me, boy.”

“Boy!”

“When you act a man, I'll give you the name.” Swardheld let go of the arm and leaped back, standing balanced and ready just out of arm reach.

The hiiri got painfully to his feet. He flexed his arms and probed carefully at his ribs, then his mouth twitched into a brief rueful smile as he looked over Aleytys' slender form. “You don't look it, woman.”

Swardheld grunted, then loosed his hold on Aleytys' body, so that she stumbled momentarily. In her head she heard a chuckle as he settled himself. Good fight. Thanks, freyka. Lets me exercise my talents. But keep an eye on that one. Tricky bastard. His head's not all, muscle.”

Aleytys sent warm thanks to him then blinked at the hiiri. “I'll look at you in a minute.” She hurried to Burash. He was staring down at his arm, his hand clutched futilely over the throbbing wound, blood pumping copiously between his fingers. His face was white and shocked.

Under her gentle hands he sank to the ground and rested his arm on his knee. Aleytys channeled the power into the arm and in seconds the wound was closed, the pale white line marking its place vanishing like a pencil mark before an eraser. He smiled at her and tried to stand.

“No, no,” she said hastily. “Wait a minute.” She kept her hands on his arm, the flow of power now directed to replacing the cups of blood he'd lost.

She opened her eyes. “You all right?” she asked anxiously, studying his face, listening with her mind to the jumble of emotions inside him.' There was a vanishing tinge of fear, a quiet compassion with no anger at all for the hiiri and a growing awe of her. She threw herself on his chest, almost knocking him over, arms around his neck. “No. Don't back away from me. I need you.” Tears filled her eyes and she trembled all over until she felt his arms come around her and then she felt warm and whole again.

Burash was calm. She could feel it. As long as she needed him, apparently he asked for nothing more. Again she marveled at the beauty of his spirit, nurtured in such hell, again she was more than vaguely ashamed of her own egocentricity. She sighed and turned to the hiiris, resting her back against Burash's chest. “We should talk,” she said slowly, tiredly.

The male hiiri shrugged and looked warily at the mahazh.

“They aren't stirring. Fortunately. But here we stand like statues in the moonlight. Come.” Aleytys pushed away from Burash and started for the bamboo grove.

Burash saw where she was going and caught hold of her arm. “Not there.”

She looked her puzzlement.

“Don't you care? That place is ours alone. If you take them.…”

She understood then, angry with herself for her blindness. “I didn't think.” She touched his cheek with trembling fingers in a silent plea for forgiveness. “Where should we go?”

“There.” He pointed. “In the shadow of those bushes next to the wall of the mahazh. No windows overlook that section.”

When they settled in the shadow of a thick-leaved bush, Burash and Aleytys backed against the mahazh, the others facing them, Aleytys rested her hands on her thighs and looked from Aamunkoitta to the strange male. “Well, Kitten, shall you introduce me?”

Aamunkoitta nodded. The young hiiri had lost her fear and doubts of Burash. She faced the stranger now, chin up, small face frowning. “Nakivas,” she said brusquely. “Paamies. This one.” She moved her three-fingered hand in a graceful gesture that swept Aleytys from head to toe. “She is one blessed by the spirits of earth. I felt it. The henkiolentomaan welcomed her a time ago when she healed your wounds. Look at yourself, aazi. Do you see the burns? Where is that bone that stuck like a white fish out of your left arm? Where is the hole that just missed your heart? Where are the cuts, the bruises? Where is the burning in your lungs? Huh! Like a bad dream it's all gone, isn't it, kortelli payay.”

He opened his mouth, arrogant face black with anger.

“Frown, go ahead.” Aleytys felt a curious mixture of rebellion, fear and satisfaction stirring in the young woman. “Tell me, if you dare, tell me I don't offer proper respect to the Paamies. Yes, I say it, huh! Should I have left you to bleed to death on the river? The hyonteinens would like that, wouldn't they? I see the kipu dancing with the joy of it.”

A picture formed in Aleytys' head. The stately dignified kipu in a riotous dance on the body of her enemy. She stifled a giggle.

“Huh! did B … Bur … Burash.…” She stumbled over the name but swept on. “No, I won't call him hyonteinen! He's not one of them, but from a clan enemy to them. Fool! You're supposed to be battle leader. Think! You went for him bare knife. All he had to do to save his life was shout and the guards would be swarming here. Did he shout? Did he? No!” She didn't wait for an answer, the excited words poured out so that he couldn't manage a word for himself. “Think, stupid. You try to kill one who has done you nothing but good? Do you keep on like that, I say such a one cannot be Paamies for me.” She moved her head in a short assertive nod, then took Aleytys' hand, glared at Nakivas, defiantly took Burash's hand.

The startled nayid closed his fingers over hers. She trembled for a minute then smiled at him and tossed her head at Nakivas.

“Will you let me speak?” He was calm.

Aamunkoitta shrugged.

“Of course you did right,” he went on. “But what could I think, waking to see one of them looking at me?” He glanced at Burash and his eyes went flat and hard. With visible effort he straightened his face. “Hyonteinen.” The word in his mouth was an obscenity. “You aren't Mahazhlik?”

Burash shook his head, his antennas jerking nervously. “The place of my birth is many weeks' travel from here. Even with the kipu's skimmers it takes days to get there. The old bitch … the queen … she snatched me from my home when I was a child, killed my kin. I've no cause to love them.” He jerked his head at the mahazh.

“Ah! and you?” He ran his eyes appreciatively over Aleytys' form, bringing a frown to Aamunkoitta's small face. “You're certainly not one of them.”

“He's slave. So am I. The kipu bought me off-world for her own purposes.” She noted his lack of surprise. “You know about the other worlds out there?”

He shrugged. “If you're kunniakas, how?”

“Long story.” She smoothed her hands over her thighs. “I'm still new to my power and there's a lot I don't know.” She touched his knee. “You want to use me. So. Bargain with me.”

“Bargain?” He looked disdainful. “I'm no haggler.” “Then you're the blockhead Aamunkoitta called you.” She laughed softly. “I don't believe it. You'd sell a man the skin off his own teeth and make him think he had a bargain. So. Bargain with me.”

“Hah.” Nakivas refolded his legs and settled his body into a comfortable slouch. “Bargain? What've you got I want?” Aamunkoitta stared and opened her mouth.

Aleytys interrupted her. “Hush, child, or Nakivas will take time out to spank you.”

The hiiri looked indignant. Burash moved a little aside and beckoned to her. “Let them play their games, Aamunkoitta. We're out of it now.”

“Huh!” But she crept over to him and settled against the wall, content for the moment to watch.

Aleytys fluttered her fingers over the material of her robe. “I can commune with the lesser lives of this world.”

“So can any trainer. There's a man in my clan.…”

“No. Not like I can do. Up there. A night hawk rides the winds.”

He examined the sky. “Either you're dreaming or your eyes are better than mine.”

“Neither. I'm not using eyes, Nakivas. I feel the wild spirit in my soul so I know he is there.” She smiled with deep relish in the surprise she was going to hand him. “Here's a trick none of yours can match. Watch.”

She slid into the hawk's body, the old skills coming back with increasing ease, and brought him swooping down. The bird curved in a tight circle above their heads then dropped to earth beside Nakivas's knees. “What do you want him to do?” Amusement trembled in her voice.

Nakivas eyed the hawk a little nervously, though he concealed his wariness behind a faint amused smile. The big bird was a deadly fighter with a strong hooked beak and hefty razor-sharp talons. “My knife. Have him bring it.”

“Walking or in flight?”

“In his beak. Walking.”

“Done.” Minutes later the hawk tottered awkwardly back to them, the knife held firmly in his beak.

Nakivas took it, not trusting his fingers so close to that beak, but unwilling to seem afraid.

The hawk took off as Aleytys released him, screaming his pleasure in his freedom.

“Interesting,” he said coolly. “But what use is that to me?”

Aleytys lifted her brows. “Milk my mind as well as my talents? Shame, Nakivas, trying to squeeze two for the price of one.”

He rubbed his nose and looked thoughtfully at the sky. “I see little use for that admittedly unusual gift.” He was silent a minute. “The clans come to this place next month. Under truce. The slave market.”

“Interesting,” she murmured. “And when they leave? They go where?”

“Here and there.”

“Hm. I have tauteassa, the gift of reading emotions.”

“Ah.” He considered her intently, eyes tracing her outlines through the loose robe she had pulled around her. “A useful gift. I see I must keep a cool head. You can tell a lie from the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Shading of truth from full truth?”

“More difficult but possible.”

“Say a prisoner was being questioned. More than lie or truth, could you sniff other trails? Say the weak points in a defense? Or.…” He shrugged.

“Emotions are seldom simple things. A man can be afraid for many reasons, or confident for others. But … given time and enough questions, yes. Properly used a great deal of information can be gathered. Accurate information.” She folded her hands and watched him.

“And if one were bargaining?” He chuckled. A quiet amusement filled him, along with a powerful desire for the power she represented. He knew what he was radiating, struggled with it briefly, then shrugged off a sudden sense of malaise, an uneasiness foreign to the driving self-confidence that usually possessed him.

“Yes.” Aleytys smiled brilliantly. “Given a few other factors, it can be an unbeatable edge in bargaining.”

“Ah.” He stared down at his hands, opening and closing them on his knees. “The hyon.…” He broke off. “Him. He wishes to return to his birth clan?”

“It may be so.” She flashed a smile at Burash and rested her hand on his, slightly distracted for a moment by her intense physical awareness of him. Nakivas watched this exchange with considerable interest.

“If this could be arranged, one with tunteassa might perhaps be willing to aid the hiiris in bargain with a stranger?”

“It might be so.” She rubbed her forefinger across her lips as she considered his face then probed deeper. He seemed reasonably sincere with the offer. “Arranged?”

“One of the clans might be persuaded to give passage.”

“Ah.”

“It's a long and dangerous journey. A healer would be useful.”

“Ah.”

“A healer might also find much honor among the clans.” He tapped his fingers gently on the hard wiry muscles of his thighs. “It will be difficult to persuade any hirri clan to give sanctuary to one who so closely resembles those they hate. The honor of the healer might perhaps make the necessary difference. A healer who would remain among the hiiri to serve their needs.”

Aleytys sighed and stretched. “Agreed,” she said softly. “But the healer has needs also. One season.”

Nakivas narrowed his eyes, pursed his lips, and angled for as much as he could get. “Value for value. A long service for a long trek.”

“Hm. Shorten the trek.” Abruptly she abandoned the sidling around. “Take Burash and me to the star city and I'll give you a season's aid in healing and bargaining and whatever use you find for my gifts.”

She felt his intense satisfaction. He took her sudden capitulation for weakness. “A year.”

“No. Don't be silly. After I see Burash safely on his way back to his island I'll come with you for one season. Or I find my own way.”

He sighed. “Very unfair. Done. One season and I see you and your friend safe as far as the star city.”

“Oh. You want to do it the other way around.”

“Seems to me you'll be happier that way. You can keep an eye on him and make sure he gets where he wants to go.”